I’LL FIGHT ON

A radio play for two voices

by

Robert Wood

Adapted (with the permission of
Harvard University Press) from the book ‘The Man with a Shattered World’ by
A.R.Luria

May 2002

SYNOPSIS

The
story begins in wartime Russia in 1943 and continues off and on over the next
twenty-five years.It is the story
of a man who as a soldier suffered the most awful and shocking head wound and
lived to tell his tale.He called
his story “I’ll fight on” because he did not lose hope when others would have
capitulated.An educated person
before his terrible injury, he had to learn to read and write again.Operating in paper space became
incredibly arduous, so reading was more difficult by far than writing.But then he could barely read what he
had written!And objects moving
around would worry him; for instance, he would be bothered by what a spoon in a
bowl of soup might do next. But writing his journal, the story of his life,
gave him some reason to live.Perhaps if he developed his ability to think, he could still be useful,
make something of his life.Reviving the past was thus a way of trying to ensure a future.In the end, he compiled a3000-page document.Why did he do it?What was the point?

The two voices are those of
the Narrator and Zasetsky, the man whose head injury and his attempts to
recover from it form the story.The Narrator tops and tails the action as well as interjecting from time
to time to comment on Zasetsky’s plight, and to carry the story forward.The author – a psychologist - was moved
to write this play by his desire to honour Zasetsky – and Luria.

Robert
Wood

Westridge
Firs, Andover Road, Highclere

Newbury, Berks RG20 9QS

A radio play for two voices

NARRATOR

The two voices are those of the Narrator and
Zasetsky, the man whose head injury and his attempts to recover from it form
the story.The Narrator tops and
tails the action as well as interjecting from time to time to comment on
Zasetsky’s plight, and to carry the story forward.

I am the Narrator.Zasetsky speaks for himself from the time he recovers
consciousness on the operating table.

PART I

1.HOW IT HAPPENED

NARRATOR

This is the story of a man who suffered the most awful and
shocking head wound and lived to tell his tale.He called his story “I’ll fight on” because he did not lose
hope when others would have capitulated in the face of what he had to
endure.His exact words were “I’m
fighting to recover a life I lost when I was wounded and became ill”.Yet had he understood the enormity of
his plight from the start, life would have been unbearable.

The story begins in Russia
in 1943 at what came to be known as the Battle of Smolensk.Zasetsky, aged 23, was commanding a
platoon of flame-throwers stationed on the banks of the Vorya River opposite
the German positions.

(rumble of
battle in the background)

He and his colleagues were
impatient to move forward.If only
the order would come, thought Zasetsky.

Ultimately the order did
come and they set out across the river.The Germans waited for them, silently.Then they opened up.Bullets whistled over Zasetsky’s head.

(sound of whistling
bullets)

He dropped down for
cover.But he couldn’t just lie
there waiting, not while his comrades were moving forward.Under fire, he jumped up from the ice,
pushed on … towards the west … there … and …

(sound of crunch
as his lights go out)

2.THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH

NARRATOR

In a tent
blazing with light, he came to.

ZASETSKY

I remember that my skull was bursting, and I had a sharp,
rending pain in my head.But I had
no strength left, couldn’t scream anymore, just gasped.My breathing stopped – any minute now
and I was going to die.But I
didn’t die.

3.WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

NARRATOR

Zasetsky in no way over-dramatized his plight.What would you do if you were to
lose most of your memory, and if the part which remained included not yesterday
and the day before, but only those things which occurred many years ago?What would you do if whenever
you looked at a page of a book you only saw the left half of the page?Or when you attended to the first word
you saw only its left half?Or when
you tried to concentrate on the first letter of that word only the left half of
the letter was there?What if you
were able to write, but could not read your own writing?These are a few of the problems
Zasetsky confronted.

ZASETSKY

True, I didn’t die but I always feel as if I’m living out a
dream – a hideous, fiendish nightmare – that I’m not a man but a shadow, some
creature that’s fit for nothing …

4.EVERYTHING TO THE RIGHT IS A BLANK

ZASETSKY

Ever since I was wounded I haven’t been able to see a single
object as a whole – not one thing.I have to fill in, try to remember what the whole object looked
like.When I look at a spoon, at
the left tip, I’m amazed.I can’t
work out why I only see the tip and not the whole spoon.When this first happened to me it
looked like a peculiar bit of space, and sometimes I’d actually get frightened
when the spoon got lost in my soup.

5.MY HEAD IS THE SIZE OF A TABLE

NARRATOR

Had only his vision been affected, things would not have been
too bad, although bad enough, but his sense of his own body had changed and,
with it, his reactions.Not only
would he ‘lose’ the right side of his body, sometimes he thought parts of his
body had changed – that his head had become inordinately large, his torso
extremely small, and his legs displaced.

ZASETSKY

Sometimes when I’m sitting down I suddenly feel as though my
head is the size of a table – every bit as big – while my hands, feet and torso
become very small.These are the
kind of things I call ‘bodily peculiarities’.Often I even forget where my forearm or buttocks are and
have to think what these two words refer to.I know what the word shoulder means and that the word forearm is closely
related to it [Russian: plecho and predpleche].But I always forget where my forearm is
located.Is it near my neck or my
hands?The same thing happens with
the word buttocks.I
forget where this is, too, and get confused.Is it my leg muscles above my knees?My pelvic muscles?When the doctor says: ‘Hands on your hips!’
I stand there wondering what this means.Or if he says ‘Hands at your sides … your sides … hands at your sides …’
What does this mean?

NARRATOR

Sometimes this confusion had rather unsettling and embarrassing
consequences: not only would he lose a sense of his own body but he would also
forget how parts of his body functioned.

ZASETSKY

During the night I suddenly woke up and felt a kind of pressure
in my stomach.Something was
stirring in my stomach but it wasn’t that I had to urinate – it was something
else. But what?I just couldn’t
work it out.Meanwhile the
pressure in my stomach was getting stronger every minute.Suddenly I realised I had to go to the
toilet but couldn’t work out how.I knew what organ got rid of urine, but this pressure was on a different
orifice, except that I’d forgotten what it was for.

6.SPATIAL PECULIARITIES; WELL, THAT’S WHAT I CALL THEM

NARRATOR

All of these unpleasant and upsetting experiences were a direct
consequence of the damage he had suffered in the parietal area of the left
hemisphere.The left hemisphere
controls the faculty for using language, and language is fundamental to
perception and memory, thinking and behaviour.It organizes our inner life.When the bullet entered that small part of Zasetsky’s brain,
it turned his world - this shattered world - into an endless series of
mazes.In the hospital workshop
where he went for rehabilitation the instructor gave him a needle, a spool of
thread, some material with a pattern on it, and asked him to try to stitch the
pattern.

ZASETSKY

When I first looked at those objects but hadn’t yet picked them
up, they seemed perfectly familiar – there was no reason to think about
them.But as soon as I had them in
my hands, I was at a loss to work out what they were for.I twisted the needle and thread in my
hands but couldn’t see how to connect the two – how to fit the thread in the
needle.

NARRATOR

After a while, not without mishap, he returned home.Wanting to help his mother, he asked to
do simple jobs about the house, like chopping wood.These caused him more grief.

ZASETSKY

I’d set a block of wood in place, pick up an axe, swing, and
miss, so that the axe hit the floor.

(sound of axe hitting the
floor)

Or it would get tangled up in the wood and the block would
bounce and jump up at me, leaving me black and blue.That’s why I have so much trouble chopping wood.

NARRATOR

‘Home’ – a little settlement called Kimovsk - was where he had
been born, grew up, and had come to know everyone.Yet again he was plagued by those ‘spatial peculiarities’ –
everything seemed alien, unfamiliar.

ZASETSKY

I’ve been living at home now for almost two years, but when I
go for a walk I still can’t seem to remember the streets, even the nearest
ones.To get to the Miner’s Club –
which is only three houses from ours – all I have to do is cross one small
block (Octyabraskaya).But
if I do manage to get there, I can’t remember how to get home.I not only forget where our house is,
but even the name of our block.I
always have to carry a little notebook with me listing my address, just in case
I get lost.

NARRATOR

The bullet fragment that had entered his brain had so
devastated his world that he no longer had any sense of space, could not judge
relationships between things, and perceived the world as broken into thousands
of separate parts.And because
space made no sense, because it lacked stability, he feared it.

ZASETSKY

After I was wounded, I just couldn’t understand space. Even
now, when I’m sitting next to a table with certain objects on it, I’m afraid to
reach out and touch them.

END OF PART I

(a little music before Part
II, perhaps something from a string quartet)

PART II

1.AN AWFUL DISCOVERY

NARRATOR

Not only had the world disintegrated, he was now
illiterate.Only when he was able
to walk and leave his room did he realise this.And, as so often with him in those early days, the
circumstances of the discovery were embarrassing.

ZASETSKY

I went into the hall to look for a bathroom I’d been told was
next door.I went up to the room
and looked at the sign on the door.But no matter how long I stared at it and examined the letters, I
couldn’t read a thing.Some
peculiar, foreign letters were printed there – what bothered me most was that they
weren’t Russian.When a patient
passed by, I pointed to the sign and asked him what it was.‘It’s the men’s room’, he replied.‘What’s the matter with you, can’t you
read?’I stood there as if rooted
to the spot simply unable to understand why I couldn’t read the sign.After all, I could see, I wasn’t
blind.But why was it written in a
foreign alphabet?Was someone
playing a joke on me – a sick man?I went up to another door and looked at the sign there.Something was written there but it wasn’t
in Russian either.I looked at the
sign and thought: it must be the ladies’ room, it’s got to be.But then I went up to the sign on the
first door again, and it seemed just as foreign and incomprehensible.For a long time I stared at the two
signs which obviously designated the men’s and ladies’ rooms I’d been told were
there.But how was I to tell which
was which?

NARRATOR

Someone read him a newspaper and he enjoyed it because it put
him in touch once again with what was happening.But when he picked up the paper to have a look at it, he was
in for a shock.

ZASETSKY

I looked at the first page and couldn’t read the name of the
paper, even though I could see the print was enormous and resembled the word Pravda.But why couldn’t I read it?At that time the idea that my injury
had made me ignorant and illiterate simply wouldn’t register.I opened up the paper and saw a picture
of Lenin.What great joy to recognise
that familiar face.But of the
caption underneath, I could make out nothing.Was it possible I couldn’t read Russian any more – not even
words like Pravda and Lenin?How awful it is not to be able to read.Only by reading does a person learn and understand things,
begin to have some idea of the world he lives in, and see things he was never
aware of before. Learning to read has some magical power, and suddenly I’d lost
this.

NARRATOR

But he refused to remain incapacitated.He would simply have to begin from the
beginning and learn to read.No
matter that he could once read German and English.It seemed peculiar to have to study to become literate
again, but this is precisely what he did.

2.LEARNING TO READ AGAIN

NARRATOR

He was assigned a teacher and given a reader designed
specifically to help brain-damaged patients like himself.He progressed very slowly.By the third lesson he could remember
the letters m and a although he couldn’t recall the letter m
immediately.He constantly had to
discover new ways to get hold of letters and so be able to recall them.

ZASETSKY

I associated the letter z with my last name- Zasetsky; the letters zh and sh with my
sister’s and brother’s names – Zhenya and Shura.But there were some letters I just couldn’t remember because
I couldn’t find suitable words to associate them with.There were three letters in particular
I had trouble remembering – s, k and m.But later I remembered the word krov [blood] which
came to mind so often I couldn’t possibly forget it.I concentrated on this word and soon began to associate the
letter k with it and would remember it each time.Then I did the same thing with the
letter s – associated it with the word son [sleep].Since I think of that word every night
when I go to bed, I quickly remembered the letter s.Before that I could never recall it.

NARRATOR

Soon he made another discovery that proved to be a great
comfort to him.It appeared he
could also remember letters by reciting the alphabet out loud as he did as a
child, using a long-established oral-motor skill instead of trying to visualize
each letter.This method was
possible because it required a faculty that had not been damaged by his injury
(only the part of the cortex responsible for gauging visual-spatial
relationships had been affected, not the verbal-motor functions).So he started to apply this method of
learning and quite soon began to read – but with the greatest of difficulty.

ZASETSKY

When I try to read a book, the most I can take in are three
letters at a time (in the beginning I could see only one).I also have to focus a little to the
right and above a letter in order to see it.Once I have mastered a letter and am ready to move on to the
next one I have to strain my memory so as not to forget the one I have just
read.You can imagine that this
problem only multiplies as the number of letters increases.Often after I have worked out the
letters in a word, I forget the word itself and have to read every letter over
again in order to understand it.The same applies with words as with letters.By the time I get to the third word I often forget what the
first or sometimes even the second word meant.No matter how hard I try, I just can’t remember.My memory seems blocked, as though it
has some kind of brake on it.

NARRATOR

And so he started to read letter by letter, word by word,
paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter, all the time fearing a letter he
had just recognized would escape him or a word be immediately forgotten.

ZASETSKY

I read so slowly I got irritated.What’s more, one eye (particularly the right one) seemed to
hinder the other – my eyes would focus to one side, carrying off a letter I’d
been looking at.I’d try to find
the letter or word I’d just lost track of in the text and hurry, knowing I was
losing time.But I’d forget where
I had stopped reading – at which particular word or letter.

NARRATOR

It took an incredible effort for him to learn to read.Was he any more fortunate in his
attempt to write?

3.WRITING, THE TURNING POINT

NARRATOR

At first writing was just as difficult as reading and perhaps
more so.He had forgotten how to
hold a pencil or to form letters.He was completely helpless.

ZASETSKY

When I picked up the pencil all I could do was draw some
crooked lines across the paper.It
seemed funny but also weird that I’d done that.Why had I?At
one time I knew how to read and write well – and quickly.I began to think I must be dreaming
again, that’s all there is to it.

NARRATOR

But a discovery he made one day proved to be a turning point:
writing could be very simple.At
first he had done exactly what little children do when they first learn to
write – he had tried to visualize each letter in order to form it.Yet he had been writing for almost
twenty years and as such did not need to employ the same methods as a
child.For adults, writing is an
automatic skill, a series of built-in movements which flow naturally, once
mastered.His injury, after all,
had damaged his capacity to see and orient himself spatially, but had not affected
his kinetic-motor function.Such a
simple discovery changed his life entirely.

ZASETSKY

At first I had just as much trouble with writing.Each time I wanted to think of a
particular letter I’d have to run through the alphabet until I found it.But one day a doctor I’d come to know
well asked me to try writing automatically – without lifting my hand from the
paper.I was bewildered at what he
was suggesting and questioned him a few times before I could begin.But I finally picked up the pencil and
after repeating the word krov [blood] a few times, I quickly wrote
it.Of course, I hardly knew what
I’d written since I still had trouble reading - even my own writing.

NARRATOR

We have all heard people say – or is it boast? – that they can
hardly read their own writing.They seem to think it is funny and expect us to chuckle but really it is
just a conceit, the result of lazy scrawl.Imagine, though, not being able to read something you have
written as clearly as you know how?Despite everything, Zasetsky started to write.He no longer had to agonize over each letter: he could write
spontaneously, without thinking.

ZASETSKY

It turned out I could only write certain words automatically –
short ones, but not words like rasporyadok [arrangement] and krokodil [crocodile],
etc.When I come to a word like rasporyadok or others that
are even longer, I have to break them down into syllables.But even this is an enormous
achievement for me.I was very
grateful to that doctor.Now I
write about as well as before I was wounded but I haven’t done as well with
reading.I still have to break
down words into syllables and letters – my reading ability hasn’t gone beyond
that.

NARRATOR

Nonetheless, he could write automatically, even though he had
to rack his brain for words and ideas with which to express himself.

ZASETSKY

When I look at a word like golovokruzheniye [dizziness], I
just can’t understand it.All the
letters – even parts of the word – are as meaningless to me as they would be to
a child who’d never seen a primer or an alphabet.But soon something begins to stir in my mind.I look at the first letter (g) and wait
until I remember how to pronounce it.Then I go on to the letter o and pronounce the whole syllable.Then I try to join it to the next
syllable (go-lo).I take a quick
look at the next letter (v), wait a little, then quickly look at the letter
o.While I’m looking at that
letter the two letters to the left of it escape my vision – that is, I see only
the letter o and two of the letters on the left.But the first two or three letters in the word (go-l) are no
longer visible.To put it more
exactly, at that point I see only a grey mist in which spots, threads and
little bodies seem to shift and flicker back and forth.

NARRATOR

Just for a moment shut your eyes and you may see the odd thread
and spot swimming around.That
will give you some idea of what Zasetsky had to contend with all the time.But since he could write, he decided to
assemble a journal that would describe the terrible abyss into which his injury
had hurled him and the struggle it took for him to recover what he had
lost.He worked on this journal
day after day for twenty-five years.Why would someone embark on such an exhausting, colossal task?Yet he must have thought there was some
chance of succeeding.

END OF PART II

(a little more music)

PART III

1.HE COULD WRITE BUT WHAT COULD HE WRITE?

NARRATOR

An eminent linguist once posed the question: ‘Now we can talk,
what shall we talk about?’Substitute ‘write’ for ‘talk’, and you have Zasetsky’s problem.He wanted to write about his life after
the injury but where was he to get the ideas, the vocabulary?How could he express himself at all,
never mind authentically, which is what he wanted for it all to be worth it?

ZASETSKY

It is so hard to write.I can only keep a small amount in mind at a time.I try to strengthen and fasten these
ideas so that they finally ‘stick’ in my mind.Sometimes I’ll sit over a page for a week or two.I have to think about it for a long
time, slowly considering what I want to say and then comparing various kinds of
writing so that I can work out how to express myself.I wanted terribly to write this story but I worked so hard
at it, I finally felt sick – both from my head wound and the endless job of
writing about it.It’s been an
enormous strain (still is).I work
at it like someone with an obsession.But I don’t want to give up.I want to finish what I’ve begun.Of course, I don’t sit and work on this story every day.If I do spend a whole day at it, the
next day (or two or three) my head aches so badly, I often have to stay in bed
(the pain is easier to take lying down).

NARRATOR

The years dragged on.He wanted to finish in three years, but it wasn’t to be.Stacks of notebooks piled up on his
desk – at first, thin books he made out of yellow paper, then thick grey
notebooks.He later changed to
even larger notebooks in oilskin covers.He started this story before the war ended and continued to work on it
for twenty-five years.One
would be hard put to say whether any other man has ever spent years of such
agonizing work putting together a 3000-page document which he could not read!Why did he do it?What was the point?

2.WHY DID HE WRITE?

NARRATOR

Why did he write?He asked himself this question many times.Why bother with this difficult, exhausting work?Was it necessary?In the end, he decided it was, for he was
not fit for anything else.He
could not help round the house, got lost when he went for walks, and often
failed to understand what he read or heard on the radio.All such things were beyond him.Hence, writing his journal, the story
of his life, gave him some reason to live.Perhaps if he developed his ability to think, he could still
be useful, make something of his life.Reviving the past was thus a way of trying to ensure a future.He also thought that by understanding
the damage a bullet fragment does to a man, people would appreciate how much
they had been given.

ZASETSKY

This writing is my only way of thinking.If I shut these notebooks, give it up,
I’ll be back in the desert, in that ‘know-nothing’ world of emptiness and
amnesia.Also, by writing my story
over and over again my speaking ability has improved.By training myself – through thinking and writing – I’ve
reached the point where I can carry on a conversation – at least about simple,
everyday matters.And my writing
has done more than anything to help me develop my memory and use of language,
of words and meanings.That’s a
fact.I know that my writing may
also be a great help to scientists who are studying how the brain and memory
work.

2.WHERE HAS MY MEMORY GONE?

NARRATOR

He was right that scientists would be grateful.In so assiduously searching for the
right expressions to describe his problems and give shape to his ideas, he has
left us a classic analysis of his disability.What is more, he did it alone, without appealing to anyone
for advice.He simply sat alone in
his small room in the workers’ settlement of Kimovsk.

ZASETSKY

I’m always forgetting!Sometimes I’ll go to the barn to get a pail of coal or some
kindling.But when I get there and
see the barn locked, I realize I’ve forgotten the key and have to go back to
the house.By the time I get to
our house I forget what I’ve come for- that I need to get the key and open the barn door.

NARRATOR

All of us experience times when we think to do something – make
a telephone call, dig something out for the next day – but get interrupted
before we do that thing.A little
later we return to the impulse and think, ‘What was it I was going to do?’Most of the time we recall what it was,
usually with some relief, because, if we don’t, we feel somewhat distressed and
wonder if our memory is going.For
Zasetsky after his injury, not recalling was normality.He could never recall what it was and
had to wait until the impulse to do that thing came round again.Why had he no control over his memory?Had all of it been obliterated, or only
specific parts?He felt this was a
matter he had to examine more closely, so he undertook a laborious task –
something like an archaeological study of his memory – to establish what
remained and what was irretrievably lost.

3.MY MEMORIES ARE ONLY OF THE PAST

ZASETSKY

All the memories I have are those from childhood and elementary
school days.That’s a weird
thing.If I happen to be sitting,
or just doing nothing, I’ll suddenly see images, visions or pictures from my
childhood: the shore of the Don where I liked to swim, the cathedral in Epifan,
the talk some friends and I gave at a club meeting.

NARRATOR

As time went by, he managed other recollections.He remembered the hospital and the
faces of the doctors and nurses who came over to enquire about him.Still later, he recalled images of
other hospitals he had been in; lastly, the rehabilitation centre in the Urals
where therapists first began to work with him.In time, images of his past emerged clearly and in great
detail, which is why he managed to write his story.But he could not summon images at will, a problem that was
particularly difficult in the early stages of rehabilitation.If someone named an object, he could
not immediately get an image of it.

ZASETSKY

I’ve seen dogs, I know what they look like, but ever since my
injury I haven’t been able to visualize one when I’m asked to.It’s the same with cats: the paws and
ears are beyond me.After I was
injured, I tried to remember my mother’s face and my sisters’ faces but I
couldn’t form any image of them.But when I was finally sent home and saw my family, I immediately
recognized them.They were
overjoyed that I was home, threw their arms around me, and kissed me.But I wasn’t able to kiss them – I had
forgotten how.

(a chord of music)

4.WHAT I CALL MY ‘SPEECH-MEMORY’ IS IN SHREDS

NARRATOR

He referred to his major disability as a loss of
‘speech-memory’.And he had good
reason to do so.Before he was
wounded, words had distinct meanings which readily occurred to him.To be in command of a word meant he was
able to evoke almost any impression of the past, to understand relationships
between things, conceive of ideas, and be in control of his life.Now all this had been obliterated.

ZASETSKY

Sometimes it takes me an entire day to think of a word for
something I’ve seen and be able to say it.Conversely, I’ll hear a word and spend ages trying to
visualize it.Sometimes when I
take a walk in the woods and fields, I test myself to see what I can remember.It turns out I’ve completely forgotten
the names of the trees there.True, I can remember the words oak, pine, aspen, maple, birch and others
sometimes (when they come to mind).But when I look at a particular tree, I don’t know whether it’s an aspen
or some other kind, even though the tree looks familiar to me.Or I’ll look at an object in the house
and begin questioning myself: ‘Is it a stove?No.And it’s
not smoke … or a chimney … or a fire … torch … candle … house … flame … light.’Damn it, I just can’t remember.So I start reciting other words: cat …
spoon … etc., and finally it comes to me.It’s cast iron!

NARRATOR

Speech that is so disorganized that a listener cannot
comprehend it is sometimes called word salad (technically,
aphasia).Kingsley Amis had great
fun with this notion in his novel Ending Up.One of the characters (played in the television version by
Michael Hordern) can never or rarely find the correct word, and we laugh or
snigger at him as he flails around trying to alight on the mot juste, until people
put him out of his misery by supplying the word.For instance, wanting the word ‘window’, Hordern tries
everything, finally hitting the jackpot with ‘you know, what you hit cricket
balls through’.Perhaps people
laughed at Zasetsky (he says as much) but his predicament was never funny, only
embarrassing or, more often, excruciating because he would never have been able
to offer clues.All he could hope
for was that, as he put it, this ‘battered memory of mine’ would, in the end,
‘stumble’ over the word he wanted.

5.THINGS I USED TO EXCEL AT - MENTAL ARITHMETIC, DRAUGHTS,
CHESS: ALL GONE

ZASETSKY

Because of my injury I forgot how to count.Once I started studying, I progressed
much faster than I had with letters, because the numbers are so much
alike.All you have to do is
remember the first ten.After
that, they’re repeated, except for some slight changes or additions to
them.My teacher asked me to
memorize the multiplication tables.I tried to do it but was always confusing them.True, I remembered some of them right
away (1 x 1, 2 x 2, 3 x 3 etc.).After that I remembered the 5s table and could recite it up to 10 x
5.But even with this, I
frequently had trouble remembering.Often I’m not sure whether five fives are 25, 35 or 45, and I’ve
completely forgotten some of the less obvious examples, like 6 x 7.

NARRATOR

Naturally, this was a terrible hindrance in his daily
life.He couldn’t even work out
how much to spend at the store, and how to count his change.

ZASETSKY

I don’t try to work out money myself when I buy food at the
store.I just tell the cashier I
need half a kilo or a kilo of something, I put the money down and I get a
stamped receipt and change from her.Then I go to the clerk who weighs out what I want to buy.

NARRATOR

These problems were not just limited to computing numbers.He could not play chess, draughts or
dominoes, games he had played so well formerly that he had invariably won.

ZASETSKY

In the hospital I used different names for the chess pieces – I
called the queen tsarevna (when I could remember that word) and the king tsar.For the rook and bishop I substituted
the words officer and crown.As long as I could remember those words, it was easier, but
I’d often forget them while I was playing.And I had the same problems I do with reading.My eyes could only see two or three
pieces on the board.Since I could
see only a small part of the board, I’d always forget about the other pieces
and lose track of them.And I couldn’t
even plan one move in advance.The
same thing happened with dominoes.It took me so long to think about the pieces, the people I played with
got angry with me.And I’d always
lose, no matter who I had for a partner, because I’d always forget which piece
a player had used the minute he had put it down.

(sound of dominoes clacking and a Russian raising his voice in
anger over a hubbub)

6.FILMS PASS THE TIME BUT MUSIC I LIKE AS MUCH AS EVER

NARRATOR

It was not only his skill at chess, draughts and dominoes that
became adversely affected.Almost
any social situation – conversation, cinema, attending a concert – became
impossibly difficult.Simple
scenes of everyday life were all he could understand in films.Anything more complicated hardly made
sense to him. Despite that, he would go to the cinema often.

ZASETSKY

I like watching films; it makes life less boring.The only problem is that I can’t read
print on the screen; my reading is too slow for that.By the time I’ve worked out a few words, new material
appears on the screen.And I can’t
see the entire screen, just a part to the left of centre.If I want to see the whole picture I
have to keep glancing back and forth at different parts of the screen.When there is a sound track, and I don’t
have to read anything, I still have trouble understanding.Before I’ve had a chance to work out
what the actors are saying, a new scene has begun.When the audience laughs, I don’t get it.The only thing I can really understand
is when two people start to argue, fight and knock each other down.

(sound of fight from a film, say, the big fight in John Ford’s
‘The Quiet Man’)

NARRATOR

He had liked music before, and he liked it as much now.He easily remembered the melodies of
songs, but not the words.This
meant that songs also seemed fragmented, consisting of a melodic part he could
understand and a content that made no sense at all.

ZASETSKY

It’s like what happened to my memory and speaking ability.I have the same problem with the words
of a song as I do with conversation.But I can grasp the melody automatically, just as I was able to recite
the alphabet automatically before I learnt to recognize letters.

(a few bars of a song without words like Rachmaninov’s
‘Vocalise’)

7.WHAT WAS NOT DESTROYED

NARRATOR

This was another instance of the split that had formed because
some brain functions had remained intact while others had been destroyed
completely.Can you guess what he
had left intact?You might be
surprised.He still had a powerful
imagination, a marked capacity for fantasy and empathy.At times in his journal he tried to
imagine lives totally unlike his own.

ZASETSKY

What if I were a cleaning woman?Life is hard, but what can I do?I’m not intelligent enough for any other kind of work and
can hardly read or write.And now
I’m old.If I were a great
engineer, running a factory would be no problem since I’d have connections with
lots of other factories and managers.Naturally life would be much easier for me than for a cleaning woman or
longshoreman.But what if I were a
woman with a disease that made my head swell up so badly I was practically out
of my mind with pain, and I screamed at everyone in the hospital night and
day?I still wouldn’t want to
die.I’m upset about my son whose
skull was fractured so badly at the back he’s brain-damaged, can hardly see, feels
dizzy all the time, and has become illiterate.I’m also worried because I don’t know what’s become of my
other son.The last I heard he was
with the troops in Lithuania in 1941.All this grief torments me night and day.

NARRATOR

Here he was surely identifying with his mother, or some other
benighted soul.Whatever the
object, his vivid imagination had not been dimmed by his injury.(It is generally believed that this
faculty, which extends to creativity and intuition, is controlled by the right
hemisphere of the brain: as you will recall, he was hit in the left side.)His imagination afforded him some
momentary relief from the effort of coping with a world that had become so
incomprehensible.

END OF PART III

(a bar or two of music)

PART IV

NARRATOR

This man Zasetsky, though unable to grasp the point of a simple
conversation or go for a walk without getting lost, has left us an amazingly
precise account of his life since that bullet fragment entered his brain.Nearly all the words spoken here, and
certainly all the ideas, are his.It required superhuman effort for him to write one page of his journal,
yet he wrote thousands.He wrote
and re-wrote those words obsessively so as to become well again.His fight never stopped.

ZASETSKY

I’m fighting to recover a life I lost when I was wounded and
became ill.